More disgusting than green beer:

The head of the St. Patrick's Day Parade [in Manhattan] ignited march madness yesterday when he likened letting gays participate to allowing neo-Nazis and the KKK to join other ethnic events.

"If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow neo-Nazis into their parade? If African-Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?" the parade's chairman, John Dunleavy, was quoted as saying in an interview with The Irish Times.

"People have rights," Dunleavy added. "If we let the [Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization] in, is it the Irish Prostitute Association next?"

When the Daily News caught up with Dunleavy at a dinner at The Waldorf-Astoria yesterday, he refused to discuss his remarks.

"I'm not talking to you. This is a private party," he said. "I'll have you removed." ...

The Irish Times interview is here. From another Irish Times article, we learn that a few people have been rejecting Manhattan for Queens, where they're a bit more welcoming:

In Woodside, Queens, where gay groups set up their own parade, the local anarchist marching band refused to march in the Manhattan parade because it excludes gays. The first openly gay speaker of New York city council, Christine Quinn, is also boycotting the Manhattan parade, as is author Frank McCourt, who noted that if you threw a bomb among the leaders of the Manhattan parade, you would kill "the cream of Irish mediocrity". His brother Malachy, dressed in an outlandish Tricolour hat for last Sunday's pro-gay Woodside parade, is even running for governor on the Green Party ticket to raise awareness of the anti-gay discrimination.

Nice. (You know all about Frank. Malachy's not a bad storyteller, either.)

That second Irish Times link notes that an earlier chairman of the Manhattan parade said "that homosexuality is a disease that can be cured in a hospital and that, if gays were allowed to march, they might attack children lining the parade route." It also notes that a bishop is trying to keep the National Organization for Women out of the parade in Morristown, New Jersey.

(And there's more -- about dwarves in Belmar, New Jersey, who either were or weren't too drunk at last year's parade there, and are banned and/or boycotting this year's parade. I bet they'd be welcome in Woodside.)